Do you care about the environment? HP does.

BlogArchive| October 16, 2007

Anneliese Olson
Director, HP LaserJet Category Management

At HP, we spend a lot of time and human resources on improving the environment. HP is a large company that sells products and supports customers in many countries around the world. Beginning in the 1950s, Global Citizenship became a core company objective. In the 1980s, HP began electronics recycling. In the early 1990s, HP formalized its efforts to design with the environment in mind.

While my day-to-day work does not have to do with our environmental strategies or tactics, I was impressed by a video I saw recently about HP’s accomplishments in this area. I know we’ve always taken an active role in the global space we play in and have had recycling programs in place for customers. I was not aware of the attention placed on managing HP’s carbon footprint on the planet.

Here are some facts and figures about the HP printing business where I work:

- In 2006, HP recycled more than 164 million pounds of hardware and print cartridges globally; an increase of 16 percent over the previous year, and the equivalent weight of nearly 600 jumbo airliners.

- In 2006, more than 30 million HP inkjet and LaserJet print cartridges were returned for recycling through the Planet Partners program (more than 2.5 million per month), representing a weight of almost 32 million pounds (or 14,300 metric tonnes).

- Each year, HP returns approximately 2.4 million refurbished products to use through its trade-in and asset recovery services where customers receive credit for used equipment.

- HP printers and imaging products are designed today for easy disassembly and recycling tomorrow. They include common fasteners and snap-in features and avoid the use of glues, adhesives, and welds where feasible.

- HP saves approximately 510 tons of paper per year by printing installation instructions on external packaging of HP laser monochrome cartridges in place of installation guide inserts.

- Save energy and limit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with HP LaserJet printers with Instant-on Technology. HP introduced Instant-on Technology for HP LaserJet printers in 1993. This technology saves energy when the printers are idle yet allows the printers to produce the first page fast when coming out of PowerSave mode, optimizing printer performance and the total time it takes to print a job. HP estimates that for our monochrome LaserJet products alone, the total energy consumption saved from 1993-2005 from use of Instant-on Technology represents 4.1 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to removing 870,000 cars from the road for one year.

I have lists of stats- but limited space. If you’d like to see more, check out this page.

I am still evolving in my own personal learning about carbon footprints and other environmental terms. In general, I have always cared about the environment and have done the basics to make sure my family does what we can to help (we recycle, we buy local when we can, we use energy efficient light bulbs, etc). But as I continue to learn about what is going on in the world, I see I have an opportunity to do a lot more.

It is a challenge though. In general, I’m sure everyone wants to do the right things, but it can come at a cost. Businesses big and small have to think about their products, services, and processes in a different way.

So how about your business? Are your products recyclable? Do you make it easy for your customers to dispose of or reuse products? Do your processes produce waste? Do you run your office in an energy-efficient way? Do you have suggestions for other businesses about what they could do to improve the environment?